The Music of Hindostan c17.160

c17.160

It is true no doubt that these tunes could be analysed in quite other ways, and equally true that their respective composers never thought for a moment of this or any other analysis. But it is only by analysis that those of us who are not composers can realize such a complex thing as the act of composition. The point is that a tune is not a tune at all until it has something that we must call closeness of structure. It might seem as if nothing could be less fettered or more impulsive than melody; beauty is there—wherever it is that tunes come from—and the composer has only to stretch out his hand and seize it. Man’s will is free, no doubt; but he is bound by his own past—in a tune, as in anything else; his tune must be a related whole, just as his life must be a consistent one. That is what is meant by structure. The closer the structure, the more lasting the pleasure which the tune gives; and to make such tunes is art, through whatever conventions.